Astro Bot Review

Team Asobi's 2024 platformer is the rare first-party mascot game that is actually about the hardware. Every level is built around the DualSense: rain lands as individual droplets in your palms, a metal surface resists differently to sand, and the adaptive triggers give a rocket punch real resistance. Fifty stages, each introducing a power-up and retiring it before it repeats - a frog suit, a dog that digs, a set of grappling hands - so nothing is padded, which is astonishing for a genre that usually pads. The collectibles are three hundred bots costumed as characters from thirty years of PlayStation history, and the celebration is genuinely affectionate rather than a marketing exercise, extending to entire levels themed on other franchises. Difficulty is gentle in the main path with genuinely hard optional stages behind it. It runs at a locked frame rate, is around twelve hours long, and it won Game of the Year at The Game Awards in 2024 against much larger titles.